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Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani's 27-story private residence (60,000 square feet, 600 employees serving a family of five), reported to cost about $1 billion. According to an October (2010) New York Times dispatch, there are "four-story hanging gardens," "airborne swimming pools" and a room where "artificial weather" can be created. Ambani and his brother inherited their father's textile-exporting juggernaut, but notoriously spend much of their time in intra-family feuding. A domestic-worker neighbor told the Times that she makes the equivalent of about $90 a month.

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(1) Lianne and Brian Kowiak of Waterbury, Vermont, complained to Ben & Jerry's in September that its new ice cream flavor, "Hazed & Confused," was "shock(ing)" and "upset(ting)" and should be changed immediately. Though most customers recognize the name only as a play on the 1993 cult movie "Dazed & Confused," the Kowiaks insist that they never be reminded that their 19-year-old son died in a college hazing incident.

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(2) In Winooski, Vermont, in August, the local eatery Sneakers Bistro earned public advertising space by beautifying one of the city's flower beds, and managers used it for the quixotic ad, "Yield for Sneakers Bacon." After one woman complained that the sign disrespected those who do not consume pork, Sneakers took it down. [WCAX-TV (Burlington), 9-22-2014] [WPTZ-TV (Plattsburgh, N.Y.), 8-25-2014]